The other day I was in the car with my daughter when an ad for Carl's Jr. came on the radio. The slogan was one I hadn't heard them use before: Eat like you mean it.
It got me thinking.
What does it really mean to literally eat like you mean it?
Of course, they -- the suits behind Carl's Jr. -- mean it like: "Be a man, eat this giant, messy, fast-food burger. Go big, or go home! Salads are for sissies and burgers from other fast-food 'restaurants' are for wanna-bes." (All this said in a super-low, drawn-out baritone, of course.)
Pretty bold.
But I think it is dead wrong.
If you'll humor me a sec, here's what I think.
If we were to actually 'eat like we mean it' we'd only put into our bodies what food is truly for:
- to provide energy
- to keep our many systems running optimally
And yes,
- to give us pleasure
(You can't only go for point #3, but you certainly can't leave it out of the equation either if you want to have any sort of enjoyment in something we do quite a lot of in our lives.)
On our kitchen counters, on our stove-tops, in our blenders -- little food experiments are happening all the time. Individual ingredients are coming together to create something new. These experiments are chiefly orchestrated to please our taste buds and satisfy our bellies.
But the experiment doesn't stop there.
Once in our stomachs, our bodies go about unpacking these tasty packages. Chemistry is unfolding further: some bits for your brain, some for your muscles, some for your hair (shiny!), some for your skin (smooth!), some to heal that pulled hamstring... A little distribution system is underway getting all those nutrients to their rightful places. If we eat like we mean it, then our food is nutrient-rich & the majority of it won't end up on the storage shelves of our thighs, butt and hips -- or tossed out with the garbage (note, I'm not talking about fiber here, which is vitally important.)
So, yeah. Thanks for the tip, Carl's Jr. I will eat like I mean it.
Well said!
Posted by: Mert Parsons | 01/21/2013 at 11:28 AM